A look of relief was spread across her face.
For a long while she simply looked at me, then shook her head and with a shrug of her shoulders she turned away.
I was dying, but I was dying slowly, and as such I was still conscious of my surroundings.
I could still hear her even if she was out of sight.
“Sunaj, I’m almost done here. I’ll have the Artifact in a few moments. What’s it like up there?”
She was walking away. I turned my head with what little strength I had left and saw her walk to the edge of the balcony and stop at the guardrail.
“Tell Capella to withdraw. Tell Rylan to stop playing with that girl and withdraw as well. If he fails to protect you then he’d better not come back. And pass the order along Drake. Tell him we’ll leave him behind if he doesn’t finish up soon.”
She reached an arm toward the black sphere, and its surface directly in front of her rippled then extended like a horizontal waterspout toward her arm.
“Sunaj, it’s here. They weren’t able to move it. It’s right where I left it.”
I watched as the black liquid suddenly enveloped her body. The air had been cold before but now it felt even colder. Then again, I was losing blood and losing temperature in my limbs as my body tried pooling its resourced into my torso and brain.
But I was still seeing things clearly enough, and I saw Celica emerge from the black liquid.
She walked backwards, away from the black sphere, yet she was still connected to it.
It was as though she was dragging, pulling, something out from the depths of the Vault.
Whatever she was retrieving was enormous.
The black sphere distended as something shaped like a coffin, or sarcophagus of immense proportions began to surface free of the Vault.
The black liquid suddenly broke away from Celica, returning with an audible thrum back to the Vault, and the sphere had regained its shape once more.
I stared at the giant Sarcophagus that stood upright on the balcony, dwarfing Celica. It had to be four times her height, and several meters wide. There was something engraved or embossed onto the surface. It looked like some kind of flower.
Suddenly it opened, the front face splitting evenly down the middle.
The black mist I was accustomed too bloomed out and quickly shrouded the Sarcophagus and balcony, hiding Celica from view.
A few seconds later, part of the mist blew away, and I was able to see Celica again.
Even in pain, I couldn’t bear to take my eyes away from the vision before me.
A fantastical, skeletal armor emerged, or fell away, from the open Sarcophagus.
At the same time, Celica’s body levitated into the air, and rotated around such that her back was to the emerging armor.
It enveloped her to a degree, encasing her legs from the thigh down into a larger limb. Its two legs and two arms connected to a short spine via chains that resembled interlocking chevrons. Around its waist a collection of vanes extended outwards and down, giving it the appearance of wearing a skirt. Using Celica as a reference, the skeletal armor looked to be at least fifteen feet in height.
As I watched the integration process complete, I saw her skinsuit change color. The black on black appearance faded away, replaced quickly by a white on blue palette. It was in stark contrast to her earlier appearance, and quite disparate to the collection of black, crimson and grey that adorned the armor she now wore. Saying she wore the armor wasn’t right. It was more accurate to say that she was growing out of the armor.
I thought I was doing pretty well to observe this much. If I survived – which was highly unlikely – I planned to draw the armor and show it to the others. Undoubtedly I would have to write up a full report of the events taking place here, and that included describing how my sister came to be clad in a strange, skeletal armor that exuded power through every inch of its being.
To my surprise, Celica walked over to me, all fifteen feet tall and fantastically dressed in what I believed was an indeed a complete Artifact.
She came to a sudden stop well clear of me.
It was easy to understand why.
In the blink of an eye, I saw Caprice standing over me.
Her arms were stretched wide, and her Valkyrie Legs were planted on either side of my body. As such I had an excellent view of her perfectly toned posterior, clad in her black skinsuit.
It was certainly a vision I planned to take with me on my journey to the afterlife.
But for now, even as my eyesight began to darken, I could only watch as Caprice planted herself protectively over me.
I swallowed what moisture I had, but it felt like blood was beginning to well up my throat, preventing me from speaking.
I couldn’t cry out to her. I couldn’t warn her, or beg her to run away.
Celica would kill her if she didn’t.
Then I saw Caprice kneel down before her, placing herself between me and Celica.
She knelt and then lowered her head to the permacrete floor of the balcony.
I couldn’t hear them anymore.
They were growing faint and blurry, and my hearing was failing me.
So I wasn’t sure if what I saw was real or just my imagination as my body began to shut down.
Celica was looking down at Caprice with an empty, unreadable look, but she reached into her blue and white skinsuit then tossed something down at Caprice. The girl chose that moment to look up, probably because Celica called for her attention.
Caprice caught what was dropped into her hands, and continued to look up at Celica.
I couldn’t see her face, but for some reason I believed Caprice did so with a look of surprise.
Then Celica stepped past the kneeling Caprice, towering over the girl as she walked out of the chamber.
For one moment, I saw Celica pause at the open doorway and clearly look down at me.
For one heartbeat, I recognized the Celica of old, and I thought perhaps she was saying farewell.
Then she faced down the tunnel, crouched her body, and vanished as her armored body leapt out of sight. Despite my failing hearing, I could still hear the roar of air that resulted from her departure down the tunnel.
Caprice consumed my vision.
She knelt over me, and jammed something into my neck. I felt a warmth surge into me. Then she discarded whatever she had plunged into me, and quickly dragged my body out of the chamber. The doors to the spherical vault were slowly closing. Caprice got me outside with time to spare.
Then the warmth in my neck turned into a raging fire.
It spread through my collar, my chest and down my arms and abdomen.
It continued to spread, bringing a searing heat through the cold in my body.
That heat became pain, and I was reminded of a time in the Student Council room when Simone and Caprice held me down as I twisted my body in agony.
I was reminded of a time on the rooftop of my old school, when a blade had been plunged into my chest.
My eyes were open now so I saw her face as she stared down at me.
The expressionless façade was gone.
There was despair written in every corner of her beautiful heart-shaped face.
And there were tears streaming down her cheeks.
Like that time on the rooftop, she silenced my cries in a completely unorthodox manner.
She planted her lips on mine, and claimed my second kiss.
#
(Kaleb)
I looked at Drake’s face, wondering how the man barely broke a sweat.
Yet I stood before him feeling my sweat run under my skinsuit.
I looked at the face of my old teacher, and wondered how things had ever come to this.
To be facing him not as teacher and student, not as comrades, but as enemies.
I wanted to hear it from him, the reason for his leaving the Sanctum’s Paladin ranks.
Did it have anything to do with Celica Desanto’s execution order? Was
it Celica who convinced him to join her at Crimson Crescent? If so, what had she offered him?
I wanted to know what he hoped to achieve by being an enemy of the Prides.
I had pushed him back away from the Vault, but only because he allowed me to. Someone watching the footage might have fooled into thinking otherwise, but I knew better since I was the one crossing Fragments with him.
I had no doubt he was simply biding for time to allow Celica Desanto to reach whatever was inside the chamber. He was keeping me away from Celica…and from Caelum.
Gathering my strength, I shifted the grip on my twin bladed lance, and charged at him once more.
The twin bardiches he wielded in each hand moved in perfect harmony, swirling almost like rotor blades as he parried my strikes. Even though their handles were too long for an axe, and too short for a proper Renaissance era bardiche, I chose to think of them as such because they possessed the curved cleaver blade.
To that I couldn’t consider my weapon as strictly a lance because it was more of a highly mobile, twin bladed spear.
I broke the attack, went for a feint, and then charged again. As on each previous occasion, he parried far too easily, though oddly he allowed me to push him back.
I chose not to pause, not to catch my breath, and to continued driving him down and out of the tunnel.
I moved in fiercely, stabbing with the lance a handful of times, before sweeping it down and across his feet. It was the one weakness he had – protecting his lower body. But he slammed one bardiche into the ground, breaking my sweep, then swung the other massive bardiche at my head.
Within a heartbeat I’d ducked under it, weaving sharply aside while simultaneously freeing my lance’s blade from the bardiche pitched into the permacrete.
And then we had skipped back, both of us putting some distance between us.
What was this—the thirtieth time?
For a while we’d been fighting each other without support from the effect-fields our Fragments could manifest. At first we’d struck at each other with the power of our Fragments, but now it was weapon on weapon, alloy on alloy. That wasn’t to say I wasn’t looking out for a piercer-field, but it felt like both of us had come to a consensus that we would fight each other without their aid.
Drake smiled at me, and anger tingled within me.
But I allowed it to do no more than that.
Anymore, and the distraction would prove fatal.
I wasn’t facing just any Familiar. I was facing the man that trained me.
The man who trained my brother and I.
He preempted my next attack, and I found myself defending furiously. My body responded automatically, moving from one defensive form to the next, while my mind kept careful track of each move he and I made.
Then by some happenstance, an opening appeared. It last for only a second, but overclocked as I was, I recognized it for what it was…and I chose to avoid it.
Nice move, but not nice enough.
It would take more than that to lure me in.
His eyes widened just a fraction, and the annoying smile on his lips grew just a tad wider.
Before that smile could grow any wider, I succeeded in parrying one bardiche then slid the lance’s blade under his right arm.
Before that smile could fade in surprise, the lance’s blade sliced a fine line through his skinsuit, all the way to his shoulder.
I could have howled a curse in disappointment.
The cut wasn’t deep enough, and I had left myself open to his counter.
This time I had to resort to a barrier-field, or else I would have been hewn in two across my abdomen.
I blocked one bardiche with the barrier-field, but the second weapon knocked me back with a barrier of its own.
I spun round and managed to get some room between us, all the while expecting him to follow me in. However, Drake stood a handful of meters away with a disappointed look on his face.
He spoke for the first time since we encountered each other in the tunnel.
“All these years, and you’ve improved so little.”
Actually, if I hadn’t improved I’d be dead three or four times by now. Besides, I didn’t get to be an instructor for the Sanctum’s Artemis and Paladin ranks by being second rate. However, even if I counted myself first rate, Drake was in a league of his own.
He breathed a heavy sigh of disillusionment. “I expected so much more from you. Even your younger brother has surpassed you.”
Is that a fact? Hard to believe actually, since I was so much better than him.
“Pity it wasn’t you that faced him,” Drake intoned morosely. “That would have been a spectacle to witness.”
“Is that what fuels your boat these days? Watching siblings fight? You’re pathetic.”
He spun the bardiches, then charged at me.
I had to block in a hurry as the weapons flashed before my eyes, catching the light of the tunnel as they struck my lance. Their weight and disposition meant every strike I blocked landed heavily against the lance’s blades, and thus heavily against my arms. If my Fragment had been a normal weapon it might have been bent and misshapen by now.
Drake continued his attack.
The fact he used two bardiches mitigated whatever advantage my lance had in terms of mobility and reach. That said, while his bardiches were shorter than the norm and lacked range, that hadn’t stopped him from almost cleaving me in half a number of times.
He swung the weapons like a spinning saw, and I succeeded in blocking them both with the lance that automatically shortened its length such that its blades met those of the bardiches. Thus engaged we pushed against each other, though I was mindful of any attempt by Drake to hook the bardiches under the lance and pull it out of my grip.
He grinned at me with far too much ease. “What happened to your Artifact? Where’s your Grand Chevalier?”
I tightened my abdominals as I forced out a reply. “What did you expect after Celica was tried for treason?” The skinsuit bulged a little as I tried pushing Drake back, and my breathing grew even more labored. “The Lanfears…stripped me of it…to appease…the Sanctum.”
He snorted contemptuously before overwhelming me with a shove that sent me flying back several feet. “Is that all they robbed you of?”
I landed well enough and then aimed the lance at him, but Drake held his ground and didn’t approach. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
He snorted again while casually hefting the bardiches. “Such a pity. So now you’re playing with that toy? What is it anyway?”
I watched him carefully, knowing he wasn’t lowering his guard. It was just a ruse. “The Lanfears have it classified as a lance, but having two bladed ends should disqualify it.”
“So you’re back to just a Fragment. Does it even have a Core?”
“Its Core is locked down, so I’m starting from scratch with this one.” I cut the air in a smooth circle with the tip of my lance. “And if you must know this is just part of my Cuirassier’s armory.”
Drake made a disgusted expression. “A Cuirassier with a lance? Gah. Abomination.”
I studied him for a moment, noting how lightly he appeared to grip the bardiches, and was clear he had never taken me seriously. “Why?”
His expression clouded a fraction. “Why what?”
“Why haven’t you summoned your Artifact? Why face me with only the bardiches and a skinsuit?”
“Isn’t it obvious? If I did so you’d be dead in an instant.”
I nodded faintly. “I’m aware of that. So why haven’t you summoned it?”
He dipped his chin at me. “I’m not the one who wants your head.”
I took a deep, guarded breath. “Rylan….”
“Blood is thicker than wine. Hate more so when between siblings.”
“I don’t hate, Rylan. I never have.”
Drake peered at me through narrowed eyes. “Now tell me, if you’re not with the Sanctum, who holds your leash?”
I swallowed guardedly at him changing the subject. “Take a guess.”
Drake’s lips drew back into a sneer. “Fabien Imreh Lanfear….”
I lowered my stance, and readied myself to leap at him.
Abruptly Drake cocked his head a fraction, then quickly brightened. “Ah, finally! Time to bid you farewell.”
I tensed for the attack but it never came.
Instead, he waved both bardiches before him, and I sensed a sudden piercer-field strike the barrier my bladed lance hastily threw up. A heartbeat later and I realized his target was the tunnel we were standing inside.
The bardiche piercer-fields tore the curved ceiling and walls, caving it in on me. I used my Fragment’s barrier-fields to ward off the worst of it, while retreating at a run a dozen meters deeper into the tunnel. Unfortunately, that put the cave-in between Drake and I. As the rubble fell, I glimpsed him running away in the opposite direction.
I waited for the debris to settle, then contacted Severin on the communication line. I was in luck. The tunnel transceiver relays were still working. They picked up my comm signal and relayed it to him.
I told him what happened on my end.
Severin said, “It can’t be helped. It was a diversion after all.”
“You should have sent me to face Celica.”
“And you’d be dead right now.”
I swallowed, tasting the powder in the air and grimaced. “What about Desanto? How did he do?”
The silence on the line made my stomach clench.
“Severin…what happened?”
I heard him swallow. “He’s down, Deneve. Celica took him down.”
Her own brother? She took down her own brother?
For a moment that stretched into many seconds, I stood still, and considered the horrid possibility that this wasn’t the Celica Desanto I remembered.
I declared tautly, “I’m on my way.”
Drake was right. If adhering to history, a lance didn’t belong with a Cuirassier Artifact. But whomever had designed the Artifacts didn’t seem to care.
Sending a thought to the Core, I summoned the Cuirassier’s Sarcophagus out of its Pocket Space. Sensing it emerging within the thick black mist, I held the lance to it at the end of my outstretched arm. It was plucked from my hand by an invisible effect-field, and replaced by two long barreled weapons that resembled ancient wheellock pistols.
Pride X Familiar ReVamp (Pride X ReVamp Book 1) Page 34
